JPH05127656A - Character processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the character processor which processes characters at a high speed. CONSTITUTION:The character processor is provided with buffer memories 12 and 24 stored with data sent from a coordinate converting circuit 3 to a raster converting circuit 4 or data sent from a contour generation preprocessing circuit 21 to a contour generation postprocessing circuit 22 and also provided with a write inhibiting circuit which inhibits data on scanning-directional segments generated as a result of a painting-out process on contours from being written in the memories 12 and 24. The process time difference between the coordinate converting circuit 3 and raster converting circuit 4 or contour generation preprocessing circuit 21 and contour generation postprocessing circuit 22 is absorbed and the write/read time of the memories 12 and 24 is shortened to speed up character information processing and improve the use efficiency of the memories 12 and 24.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character processing apparatus for generating a dot font from an outline font, and more particularly to improving the processing speed thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 6 shows, for example, "Nikkei Electronics".
It is a block diagram which shows the conventional character processing apparatus described in pages 116-177 of the July 25, 1988 issue. In the figure, 1 is a bus control circuit for controlling the external bus of the character processing device, and 2 is a fetch / decode circuit for reading outline font data and the like from the external bus and decoding the data contents.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a coordinate conversion circuit for performing coordinate conversion such as enlargement / reduction on outline font coordinate data, and 4 has a function of generating a dot font in which the inside of the contour is filled with dots from the coordinate-converted data. It is a raster conversion circuit. Reference numeral 5 is a bit map access circuit for writing the dot font generated in this way into a bit map memory connected to an external bus.

Next, the operation will be described. The fetch / decode circuit 2 reads outline font data from the outline font storage device (not shown) that stores outline fonts through the external bus control circuit 1. The read outline font data is subjected to coordinate conversion for enlargement / reduction / rotation, etc. according to the following equation 1 by a coordinate conversion circuit 3 according to a value preset in the device.

X ′ = ax · x + bx · y + cx y ′ = ay · x + by · y + cy (1)

Here, ax to cy are coefficients for enlargement / reduction, etc., x and y are coordinate values of points on the contour indicated by the outline font data, and x'and y'are on the contour after coordinate conversion. Is the coordinate value of the point.

Next, the raster conversion circuit 4 generates data in which the inside of the outline is filled, and the bitmap access circuit 5 writes a dot font in which the inside of the outline is filled with dots on the bitmap through the external bus control circuit 1.

The outline font storage device does not store all the points forming the contour, but only the coordinate values of the end points of the line segment when the contour is approximated by a straight line or the like. In addition to the above-described function of filling the inside of the contour with dots, the raster conversion circuit 4 also has a function of contour generation processing for generating coordinate values of points interpolated between the points given by the outline font data. ing.

As is clear from the above equation 1, the coordinate conversion processing time by the coordinate conversion circuit 3 does not depend on the character size in proportion to the number of coordinate points, but at a constant speed as the outline font data is read. Can occur in.

On the other hand, since the contour generation processing time is proportional to the length of the contour line, it is proportional to the character size. Further, the length of the contour line is not constant, and there are long portions such as horizontal and vertical portions of the character contour and short portions such as diagonal lines, so that the processing speed becomes uneven.

[0011]

Since the conventional character processing device is configured as described above, the data output from the coordinate conversion circuit 3 is directly input to the raster conversion circuit 4 having the function of contour generation processing. Therefore, when the contour line is long, the processing time of the raster conversion circuit 4 becomes long and the coordinate conversion circuit 3 waits. On the contrary, when the contour line is short, the processing time of the raster conversion circuit 4 becomes long. There is a problem in improving the processing speed such that the processing speed of the coordinate conversion circuit 3 becomes shorter and the raster conversion circuit 4 has to wait because it becomes shorter.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object thereof is to obtain a character processing device capable of high-speed character processing.

[0013]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a character processing device including a coordinate conversion circuit for performing coordinate conversion such as enlargement or reduction of outline font data, and a coordinate conversion data. A memory that temporarily stores the data output from the coordinate conversion circuit and then sends it to the raster conversion circuit is provided between it and the raster conversion circuit that has the function of generating a dot font in which the area surrounded by the contour is filled with dots. It is a thing.

In the character processing device according to the second aspect of the present invention, in order to generate the contour formed by the coordinate-converted data, the contour generation preprocessing for generating data for interpolating the contour. The data output from the contour generation pre-processing circuit is temporarily stored between the circuit and the contour generation post-processing circuit that generates dots that form the contour based on the data for interpolating the contour A memory is provided for sending to the post-generation processing circuit.

Further, in the character processing device according to the present invention as defined in claim 3, the raster conversion circuit according to claim 1 or the filling circuit according to claim 2 performs the filling process in a scanning format, and the dot data on the contour is concerned. A write inhibit circuit is provided to inhibit the writing of the dot data to the memory when it is generated by the scanning type filling process.

[0016]

According to the first aspect of the invention, the memory buffers the data sent from the coordinate conversion circuit to the raster conversion circuit so that the coordinate conversion circuit and the raster conversion circuit can operate independently in parallel. A character processing device that absorbs a processing time difference and can perform character processing at high speed is realized.

In the memory according to the second aspect of the present invention, the contour generation pre-processing circuit and the contour generation post-processing circuit are buffered by the data sent from the contour generation pre-processing circuit to the contour generation post-processing circuit. (EN) A character processing device capable of performing parallel operations independently, absorbing a processing time difference between them, and performing character processing at high speed is realized.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the write prohibition circuit improves the efficiency of use of the memory by prohibiting the writing of the line segment data in the scanning direction generated by the filling of the contour into the memory. With
A character processing device capable of high-speed character processing is realized by shortening the memory writing time and reading time.

[0019]

【Example】

Example 1. Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the invention described in claim 1. In the figure, 3 is a coordinate conversion circuit, 4
Is a raster conversion circuit, which is the same as or equivalent to those of the conventional one denoted by the same reference numeral in FIG. 6, and therefore detailed description thereof will be omitted.

An outline font storage device 11 stores a plurality of characters as outline font data expressed by respective contours. A memory 12 is arranged between the coordinate conversion circuit 3 and the raster conversion circuit 4, and temporarily stores the data output from the coordinate conversion circuit 3 and then sends the data to the raster conversion circuit 4, such as a FIFO (first in / fast out) memory or It has a configuration such that writing and reading can be performed asynchronously like a dual port memory.

Next, the operation will be described. The outline font data read from the outline font storage device 11 is sent to the coordinate conversion circuit 3 to be subjected to the calculation by the above-described Expression 1 and the like, and after the coordinate conversion such as enlargement or reduction is performed, the memory is stored. Written in 12. The raster conversion circuit 4 sequentially reads the data once stored in the memory 12 and fills the inside of the contour with dots to generate a dot font.

As described above, since the memory 12 can read and write asynchronously, for example, if the memory is not full in the case of a FIFO memory, the coordinate conversion circuit 3 operates in the raster conversion circuit 4. The coordinate-converted data can be written in the memory 12 without waiting for the completion. Further, the raster conversion circuit 4 can perform processing without waiting for the processing of the coordinate conversion circuit 3 by sequentially reading the data stored in the memory 12 up to then even if short line segments are continuous. is there.

FIG. 2A is a timing chart showing the operation timing, and FIG. 2B shows the operation timing of the conventional character processing device for reference. Further, in each figure, the upper part shows the processing time of the coordinate conversion circuit 3 and the lower part shows the processing time of the raster conversion circuit 4, and the numbers in the frames show the numbers given to the contour lines being processed at that time.

In the conventional character processing device, the data cannot be passed / received unless the processing of the previous / next contour line is completed, so that a wasteful time such as the hatched portion in FIG. Occurs.

On the other hand, according to this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2A, the coordinate conversion circuit 3 writes the processing result in the memory 12 without waiting for the processing of the raster conversion circuit 4, so that the processing can be performed at a constant speed. Even if the raster conversion circuit 4 can be continued and the processing time is short and the short contour line continues, the coordinate conversion circuit 3 stores the long contour line in the memory 12 while processing the long contour line. By reading the data, there is no waste of processing time, and as shown in FIG. 2, the processing time is shortened compared to the conventional case.

As shown in FIG. 2, it is sufficient for the memory 12 to store several pieces of data (specifically, 4 to 8 pieces of data), and the memory 12 may be a small one. Become. That is, the required memory depth is the difference between the contour number being processed by the coordinate conversion circuit 3 and the contour number being processed by the raster conversion circuit 4 at a certain time, but in the example shown in FIG. This is 3.

Example 2. Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the invention described in claim 2, and the same parts as those in FIG.

In the figure, reference numeral 21 denotes a contour generation preprocessing circuit for generating data for interpolating the contour in order to generate the contour formed by the coordinate-converted data in the coordinate conversion circuit 3, and 22 Is a contour generation post-processing circuit that generates dots that form the contour based on the data for interpolating the contour.

Reference numeral 23 denotes a filling circuit for generating a dot font in which the area surrounded by the dots generated by the contour generation post-processing circuit 22 is filled with dots.
Is a memory which is arranged between the contour generation pre-processing circuit 21 and the contour generation post-processing circuit 22, temporarily stores the data output from the contour generation pre-processing circuit 21, and then sends it to the contour generation post-processing circuit 22. ..

In this embodiment, the contour generation pre-processing circuit 21, the memory 24, the contour generation post-processing circuit 22,
The raster conversion circuit 4 is configured by the filling circuit 23.

Next, the operation will be described. The operation up to coordinate conversion is the same as that in the first embodiment, and therefore its explanation is omitted. Here, the operation of generating a contour from the coordinate-converted data is roughly divided into the following two stages.

(1) Information necessary for contour generation is generated from contour data. Specifically, when a line segment is generated, it is an inclination, or in the case of Bresenham's algorithm, which is widely known as an algorithm for generating a line segment, the difference or error in the x and y directions of the line segment To find the value of a term. (2) The contour is actually generated from the information necessary for generating the contour.

Of these, the processing time of the item (1) is proportional to the number of coordinates as in the coordinate conversion, and the processing time of the process (2) varies depending on the length of the contour. Therefore, even if the circuit for executing the processing of the item (1) is directly connected to the coordinate conversion circuit 3 and a memory is provided between the circuit for processing the item (1) and the circuit for processing the item (2), The same effect as that of 1 can be obtained. In FIG. 3, the contour generation preprocessing circuit 21 corresponds to a circuit for processing the item (1), and the post-contour generation circuit 22 corresponds to a circuit for processing the item (2).

From the contour data generated by the coordinate conversion circuit 3, the contour generation preprocessing circuit 21 generates data such as the inclination necessary for contour generation and writes it in the memory 24. This memory 2
Reference numeral 4 is a FIFO memory or a dual port memory capable of asynchronously executing reading and writing, similar to the memory 12 in the first embodiment.

The contour generation post-processing circuit 22 reads information necessary for contour generation from the memory 24 and actually generates the contour. The filling circuit 23 generates and outputs a dot font whose inside is filled with dots from the generated contour.

When the raster conversion speed is slower than the coordinate conversion speed, a part of the raster conversion processing can be transferred to the coordinate conversion processing side, so that the speed can be further increased as compared with the first embodiment.

Example 3. Further, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the invention described in claim 3, and the same parts as those in FIG. 2 are designated by the same reference numerals to avoid duplicated description.

In the figure, 31 is a contour generation preprocessing circuit 2
When the dot data on the contour generated by No. 1 is generated by the filling processing of the filling circuit 23, a write prohibition circuit that generates a signal for prohibiting writing of the dot data and sends it to the memory 24. .. In this case, the filling circuit 23 executes scanning type filling processing.

Next, the operation will be described. Here, since the basic operation is the same as that of the second embodiment, the description thereof will be omitted. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a process of generating a dot font from outline font data.

Scan type filling by the filling circuit 23 is performed, for example, by scanning from left to right as shown by an arrow at the bottom of FIG. 5, and if there is a dot, turns the subsequent dots on, and then the next dot. If there is, the subsequent dots are turned off and the filling is completed. For this reason, when the contour on the scanning line is generated, such scanning type filling is not correctly performed. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, when the contour is generated, the contour in the scanning direction is not generated.

As described above, since the contour in the scanning direction is not drawn, the information for generating the contour in the scanning direction is also stored in the memory 24.
Storing in the memory 2 requires processing for determining whether or not there is a need for drawing in the contour generation post-processing circuit 22 that has read it out, which leads to a decrease in processing speed, and the
The usage efficiency of No. 4 is also reduced.

Therefore, if the information generated by the contour generation preprocessing circuit 21 does not require contour drawing, the write inhibit circuit 31 operates to generate a signal that inhibits writing of the information into the memory 24. To do.

[0043]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the invention, the memory is provided between the coordinate conversion circuit and the raster conversion circuit to buffer the data sent from the coordinate conversion circuit to the raster conversion circuit. With this configuration, the coordinate conversion circuit and the raster conversion circuit can operate independently and in parallel, and there is an effect that a character processing device capable of performing character processing at high speed is obtained by absorbing a processing time difference between them.

According to the second aspect of the invention, a memory is provided between the contour generation pre-processing circuit and the contour generation post-processing circuit, and data sent from the contour generation pre-processing circuit to the contour generation post-processing circuit is stored. Since it is configured to perform buffering, the contour generation pre-processing circuit and the contour generation post-processing circuit can operate independently and in parallel, the difference in processing time is absorbed, and a character processing device capable of high-speed character processing is obtained. It is effective.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the writing of the line segment data in the scanning direction, which is generated by the filling of the outline in the scanning direction, is prohibited. , And the reading time is shortened, the character processing can be speeded up, and a character processing device with high memory usage efficiency can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a timing chart showing the operation timing of the above-described embodiment together with the operation timing of a conventional character processing device.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a process of generating a dot font from outline font data in the above embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a conventional character processing device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 3 Coordinate conversion circuit 4 Raster conversion circuit 11 Outline font storage device 12 Memory 21 Contour generation pre-processing circuit 22 Contour generation post-processing circuit 23 Filling circuit 24 Memory 31 Write inhibit circuit

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location G06F 15/66 355 K 8420-5L 15/72 355 U 9192-5L 400 9192-5L

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An outline font storage device for storing a plurality of characters as outline font data expressed by respective contours, a coordinate conversion circuit for performing coordinate conversion such as enlargement or reduction to the outline font data, In a character processing device having a raster conversion circuit having a function of generating a dot font in which a region surrounded by a contour formed by coordinate-converted data is filled with dots, a coordinate conversion circuit and a raster conversion circuit are provided. A character processing device provided with a memory for temporarily storing data output from the coordinate conversion circuit and then sending the data to the raster conversion circuit. 2. An outline font storage device for storing a plurality of characters as outline font data represented by respective outlines, a coordinate conversion circuit for performing coordinate conversion such as enlargement or reduction to the outline font data, A contour generation preprocessing circuit that generates data for interpolating the contour to generate the contour formed by the coordinate-converted data, and a dot that forms the contour based on the data for interpolating the contour. A contour generation post-processing circuit for generating a contour generation post-processing circuit, and a filling circuit for generating a dot font in which a region surrounded by the contour of the generated dots is filled with dots. After the data output from the contour generation preprocessing circuit is temporarily stored between the post-generation processing circuit and A character processing device comprising a memory for sending to a post-contour generation processing circuit. 3. The raster conversion circuit or the filling circuit is a circuit that executes a scan-type filling process, and the dot data on the contour that is filled by the filling process by the raster conversion circuit or the filling circuit, The character processing device according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising a write prohibition circuit that prohibits writing to the memory.